FIRST Robotics account suggestion

Vrmithrax

Just putting this out there as a suggestion...  The collaboration and efficiency of Onshape could mesh very well with FIRST Robotics teams (particularly FRC teams), where many struggle with revision controls and library issues during their building seasons.  Onshape already has educational accounts for students and educators, which is great.  However, many of the volunteer mentors for FRC teams are not educators, but are industry professionals who are bringing their experience and knowledge to help provide guidance for the students.  Some teams are not associated with an educational institution at all, in fact.  So, it is usually not practical to try something like Onshape when there is a large segment of the technical backbone of an organization that does not have access.

Allowing licenses for FIRST team members and mentors (not just students and educators) would be a great way to win hearts and minds of industry professionals and technical-minded students involved in STEM educational programs.  Autodesk is already doing this, and provides 3 year licensing to mentors and students for a huge array of their software (AutoCAD, Inventor Pro, Maya, etc.).  Solidworks also has some sponsorship and involvement in FIRST teams, though not as widespread as Autodesk.  Just seems like Onshape is missing out on a great opportunity to gain some exposure to future engineers and designers, during their formative years.

noa

Hi @chris_lambert753, we very much agree and that is why we worded the terms of the Education Plan carefully to include mentors of FIRST robotics teams. You'll notice the phrase is "I am a current faculty member or volunteer at an accredited educational institution." Of course, the second phrase is important too: "I agree to use this plan for classroom instruction, student learning projects, school clubs/organizations, and academic research. I will not use this plan for government, commercial, or other organizational use."

As long as this is respected, mentors may sign up for the Education Plan. Simply identify as "Educator." 

p.s. we are actually collaborating with FRC now and will provide a special signup form that breaks that down more clearly.

thomas_kozak

@noa This is a fair point, but as Chris mentioned not all FIRST teams are associated with an educational institution (most are, probably).  An explicit FIRST license would solve this as well as help generate some OnShape visibility.

@chris_lambert753 That said, what's stopping you from using free plans? My FTC team uses OnShape pretty extensively (although I'm still trying to get them on board with actual collaboration...).  Given that many teams publish their designs already in the spirit of coopertition I don't see why a FIRST team would require the secrecy which is going to be the main benefit of a Pro/Education account.

justin_36

FRC 2090 in Honolulu had great success in the Stronghold season. Not only did collaboration and version history help immensely, half of our core CAD team was new to CAD in December and very quickly was up to speed through Onshape.

Glad to hear from Noa that there will be an official FRC partnership.

We are continually learning how to best teach CAD to our middle and high school students in a context where there isn't a whole class dedicated to learning CAD.

Aloha,
Justin

edward_petrillo

FRC Team 293 (SPIKE, Pennington, NJ) was kindly granted a Pro license for one mentor (me) a couple of months before the education plan was initiated, and we proudly list Onshape among our sponsors.  We designed our entire Stronghold robot in OS with about 6-8 collaborators, and we're migrating the entire team to the education plan in preparation for next year's build.  The ability to have everyone looking at the same model, no matter what, is a compelling rationale for using OS instead of Inventor, which our kids Iearn in class, or Solidworks, with its  install/version administrative overhead.  The school just issued a Chromebook to every student, and we're looking forward to assessing the impact of that change on our productivity.   

Ian_Rumsey

noa said:

Hi @chris_lambert753, we very much agree and that is why we worded the terms of the Education Plan carefully to include mentors of FIRST robotics teams. You'll notice the phrase is "I am a current faculty member or volunteer at an accredited educational institution." Of course, the second phrase is important too: "I agree to use this plan for classroom instruction, student learning projects, school clubs/organizations, and academic research. I will not use this plan for government, commercial, or other organizational use."

As long as this is respected, mentors may sign up for the Education Plan. Simply identify as "Educator." 

p.s. we are actually collaborating with FRC now and will provide a special signup form that breaks that down more clearly.

Greetings,
Is there an updated status on the FRC/FTC collaboration here in August 2022?  I'm a coach of a community (non-school) FTC team that has team members from many schools (including a few home-schooled), and non-teacher mentors.  The "Sign Up" buttons from both of the pages below take you to a second screen that has required fields for school, school web site, etc.  Is there a way to sign up my whole team with education accounts in this scenario?

https://www.onshape.com/en/education/programs-and-partners/first
and
https://www.onshape.com/en/blog/how-to-onboard-your-first-robotics-team

Domenico_DiMare

Hi @Ian_Rumsey

Excited to have your team use Onshape!  

To get your team signed up, just have each student/mentor sign up and put in their school and school's website.

For students/mentors that are home schooled or not associated with a school, they can put in your team's name and website if you have one or a home school program/association. The updated terms of the education account allow for any student or mentor of a qualified competition to sign up for an education plan.